


see the luck that i've had

by stoprobbers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Can we PLEASE get more Hawkins High post-Halloween party fic?, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Post-Episode: s02e09 The Gate, Post-Season/Series 02, Silly, awkward teenagers are the best teenagers gimme more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 11:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16428167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: The thing is, in the complete madness of the past three days, he has completely forgotten about Tina’s Halloween party.So, he thinks, he can’t really be blamed for not recognizing Samantha at all at his locker Monday morning.





	see the luck that i've had

The thing is, in the complete madness of the past three days, he has completely forgotten about Tina’s Halloween party.

So, he thinks, he can’t really be blamed for not recognizing Samantha at all at his locker Monday morning.

To be fair, he barely recognizes his locker. He’d slept fitfully, at best, the night before, had been sure his mom would keep him home for the day, but she reminded him of how much summer school it had taken for him to catch up last year and told him to go while she took Will to the doctor.

He’s clumsily entering the combination, having fucked it up twice already, when a shadow falls across them. He’s about to sag in relief, about to reach for her hand and pull her close to reassure himself they really are still there, really are still alive, when the shadow speaks.

“Seems you like school about as much as parties.”

 It’s not Nancy’s voice.

His head shoots up and finds a small, slim girl in front of him with long, straight blonde hair and dancing eyes. She’s wearing a black sweater and a black backpack and a smirk. Something about the smirk makes him pause; it’s familiar. But he can’t place it.

“Uh,” he starts. Then he stops. His mouth just stays open and his brain grinds to a halt, trying desperately to figure out what’s going on. He glances quickly side to side to see if anyone is watching him acting like an idiot. So far, no one is.

The girl waits a long beat, raises an eyebrow at him. “Samantha. You know, Kiss? But not?”

It’s like a wave crashing over him; the black wig, the stark makeup, the dizzying awkwardness of the party and sticking his foot in his mouth even though he  _knows_  who Siouxsie Sioux is, he  _owns her records_ , the growing sense that he was being flirted with just before Steve brushed past him, hard, and everyone but Nancy was forgotten.

“Oh. Right.” 

“I know you said you don’t like parties, but you missed the rest of a really good party,” she leans against the locker next to his. She tilts her chin down just barely, looks up at him through her eyelashes, “It got a little wild later on.”

“What does that mean?” he asks before he can even think the question through. He doesn’t care, really has no interest in what happened at the rest of Tina’s party. Damn his reflexive politeness.

“Oh, you had to be there,” she shuffles a step closer. “I took some photos. I could show you, later.”

She’s definitely flirting and he… he has no idea what to do.

“I, uh…” He takes another glance around and a few people are looking his way, longer looks than usual. Oh, he hopes he’s not blushing. “I didn’t notice your camera?”

She bites her lip in a way he thinks is supposed to seem enticing  _and_  keep her from laughing and he’s really gotta ask Nancy about that later, if that’s a thing girls do outside of this one mortifying scenario and whether they think it works.

“I didn’t see you the day after. Or Friday for that matter,” Samantha is saying. “Wish I could skip like that.”

“I, uh. It wasn’t, um, exactly… that.”

“Oh, no? What was it, then?”

It’s not just that he can’t  _exactly_  say he ran off with Nancy to bring down a secret government lab, or that he then spent possibly the best night of his life with Nancy followed immediately by one of the worst nights of his life, also with Nancy. It’s not just that he’s wondering where Nancy is, or when she’s going to find him, or if he has to go find her to make sure she’s safe, she’s whole, and perhaps that she still wants to kiss him the way she did at Murray’s or when he dropped her and Mike off at the Wheelers’ last night.

It’s just that girls don’t  _flirt_  with him and what is he supposed to do to keep from being a total fool or a total ass?

“Just, uh, not… not that,” he tries. Fights to hold the wince off his face and only barely succeeds.

“So you  _didn’t_  skip school with Nancy Wheeler for two days? Because that’s what the rumor mill’s been saying.”

“No I mean, I did. The weekend, too,” it comes out immediately, like a reflex, and he sincerely hopes that if there any,  _any_  part of the Gate that  _isn’t_  closed it will open beneath his feet right now and swallow him whole.

“Oh.” Samantha straightens up, levels her face, and there’s something swirling behind her eyes that makes him feel terribly guilty. “I thought I heard… So are you guys—“

She cuts herself off just a second before he feels a hand slide into his, fingers lacing, a familiar grip he’s been thinking about all morning. A thin shoulder presses against the back of his arm and he almost sags with relief.

“Hey,” Nancy says softly, her breath whispering across his neck.

“Hey,” he murmurs back, glancing at her out the corner of his eye. Her hair is clean, is curly, and if there are dark circles under her eyes he can’t see them. She’s biting her lip, too.

“Hey Nancy,” Samantha says, her voice suddenly so much louder, so much brighter, and this time it’s only the squeeze of Nancy’s hand in his that keeps the wince off his face. “Sorry, Jonathan, I’m running late to class. I’ll see you later.”

There’s another two minutes until the warning bell is set to sound. “Uh, ok. See you later.”

Samantha offers them both a tight smile before swiftly taking off down the hall so fast her hair bounces, and he closes his eyes against the image. Nancy keeps hold of his hand as she slides silently to face him. When he opens his eyes, hers are dancing and there’s a smile threatening to burst across her lips.

“That,” she says slowly, “was the most  _awkward_ thing I think I’ve ever seen.”

Then the smile does burst, and from it comes loud giggles, and he rolls his eyes, turning back to his locker. The warmth of her, the feeling of her next to him, has cleared his head a bit and he enters his combination easily this time. 

“Shut up.”

“Have you never flirted with anyone before?”

“No!” He pulls out books and stuffs them awkwardly into his bag one-handed, unwilling to let go of her. “It’s not like I’ve had girls chasing after me.”

“But you’ve flirted with  _me_.”

“That’s different,” he murmurs. Instead of shutting his locker he tugs lightly on her hand, tries to tamp down his soaring heart when she takes a step closer immediately. “You’re different.”

He sees her grin soften as he brings his face down, feels her tilt her chin up to accept his kiss. It’s a brief, stolen thing, but it makes something inside him he didn’t even realize was roiling calm into smooth glass.

“You’re a terrible flirt,” she says when she pulls away. It’s so normal, so absurdly  _teenage_ , he almost can’t believe it. It’s as if all they did this weekend was get together, not fight another set of monsters from an alternate dimension.  _Again_. 

He rolls his eyes, shuts his locker. “Am not.”

“No, I mean, you’re terrible at it. Really,  _really_ bad.”

“Oh, shut up!”

“Do you want lessons? I could give you lessons.”

“What, so I can flirt with other girls?”

“No, so you can flirt with  _me_ , but better.”

She keeps teasing him all the way to English, and doesn’t let go of his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like there's a goldmine of post-season 2 fic in which Samantha - like everyone else at school - has no idea all the crazy shit that's happened since Tina's Halloween party _or_ that Jonathan and Nancy have gotten together, and that could lead to all kinds of hilarious shenanigans. Fandom, _please_ mine that goldmine. I invite you. i beg you. 
> 
> This was a very silly thing thank you for reading.
> 
> Title from The Smiths' "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want"


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